Tokyo Olympics live updates: swimming, women’s 200m freestyle semi-finals

Ariarne Titmus will race for gold again where she is poised to face her great rival Katie Ledecky in the 200m freestyle final.

Australia's Ariarne Titmus (L) and USA's Kathleen Ledecky. Picture: AFP

Australia’s Ariarne Titmus and her great American rival Katie Ledecky will go at it again after both qualified for Wednesday’s 200m freestyle final at the Tokyo Olympics.

Titmus is 1-0 up in their four-round head to head battle for the title of the world’s best female swimmer after beating Ledecky in the 400m final.

She will go into the 200m final as the outright favourite after posting the fastest semi final time of 1:54.82 without going full throttle.

Ledecky qualified third fastest after winning her semi-final in 1:55.34 despite also swimming the 1500m heats on Monday night.

She and Titmus will also race each other in the 800m and the 4x200m relay.

Madi Wilson, who won gold in Tokyo in the 4x100m freestyle relay, qualified eighth after replacing Emma McKeon as Australia’s second entrant in the event while Italy’s double world champion Federica Pellegrini was seventh.

Post-race, Titmus said: “I think I should be right with that swim. I wanted to try and put a 1.54 out there. I want to get in the middle. That’s what I think it was going to take. Happy with that.”

On her heroics yesterday in the 400m, she added: “I got a hold of mum and dad last night. Quickly before I went to sleep. They were obviously still so hyped about it. I was trying to calm down. Get ready for bed. Took me a while to fall asleep. Once I did, I woke up feeling pretty good.”

Ledecky said she knew the 200m freestyle semi-final would be a tough ask.

Out of the three swims, two last night and the one this morning, I knew this one was probably going to be the hardest,” Ledecky said.

“I felt really good through that – I was tired in the last 15 but I had good control over the heat.

“I just expected it to be a bit more challenging and not come easy.”

Ian Thorpe was glowing in his appraisal of Titmus’ approach to the semi-final.

“There are so many different ways that Ariarne can put the race together. This was a race to qualify for the final. This isn’t the final,” the former Olympic champion said on Channel 7.